Are you wondering what I've been working on for this past... forever (at least it seems like it!)? Trying to figure out why I haven't made a new Java project recently and have been mostly absent from competitions?

New for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I programmed everything except for most of the main menu and the sound system. And I did it all from scratch in Objective-C. All 3D model loading, OpenGL workings, etc. etc. was me, and a few things were with the help of the JGO community (noticed any of my weird out of place questions?). So thank you all for the help you gave me and just for being around to keep me sane.

And now I'd thank you to buy it and give it a 5-star review. Yeah! Help a fellow JGO-er!

Imagine a cross between Tetris and Diner Dash, multiplied by one thousand in terms of awesomeness and you have Valet Hustle.

You play the role of Ren or Akira, who run their own valet business. Help build their business and make the move from Tokyo to New York. You have to park cars, pickup customers and solve puzzles against a backdrop of increasingly impatient and wealthy customers.

And good job standing up for gay marriage! I get a nagging feeling it's "just" a marketing trick, but as marketing tricks go, this is a far less evil one than most. =)

I'd buy it in a heartbeat if I had an iphone.

Actually the main game designer is a big anti-Prop-8 nut, and we all voted against it here in the office (in case you don't know, Prop 8 is the ridiculous BS that was recently passed in California, reversing the decision of the supreme court to make gay marriage legal).

Yeah, I just found that today, I was pretty excited. There has actually been a really big amount of news on it, but what's really annoying me is that all of these people are saying "OMG A GAME WITH GAYS (gameplay looks pretty fun)." Not a single one is playing it. Get over the fact that the story is a little different and maybe enjoy the gameplay? Damn.

Unfortunately, I am now out of a job. The game hasn't been selling nearly enough to even pay daily expenses, so our investors suddenly went stir-crazy and closed us down a couple months before we were even out of money. It's really weird to me, because there are plenty of other ways we could have tried to promote this.

Oh well, I've already got a job offer and some other interviews so I'm not worried, but it's still pretty sad. I was at this company from the ground up for a year and a half, I'm listed as the co-founder, and now poof. So goes venture startups, I guess.

Oh well, I've already got a job offer and some other interviews so I'm not worried, but it's still pretty sad. I was at this company from the ground up for a year and a half, I'm listed as the co-founder, and now poof. So goes venture startups, I guess.

how do you fire a founder?? or did you guys sell your souls to investers?

how do you fire a founder?? or did you guys sell your souls to investers?

It's a pretty complicated situation, but even though I was a founder I don't have any ownership if the company. The two owners (a co-founder and an investor), through a lot of complicatedness that I won't go into, decided to fold the company over. But in the end it all comes down to the fact that the company was out of money and even when there were hundreds of Google results (stories or reposted stories) about Valet Hustle, it sold at max 92 copies in one day. Daily fees at the company were at least $1000 / day, so you can see why it was pretty quickly decided to cut and run. I still think we had other opportunities to have a hit (especially because we have pretty much only gotten good reviews), but oh well.

Well, first, sorry to hear that, but yes, the gaming market is tough. People expect things to be free. So what will happen to the game itself?

Futher, if you really want a higher paying job, learn databases and J2EE. It's mundane, but it the pay is insane. Expect to work with idiots.The fantastic, creative, financially viable projects that actually require programmer braincells and are not doomed to fail, are few and far between.

Hi, appreciate more people! Σ ♥ = ¾Learn how to award medals... and work your way up the social rankings!

I am sorry to hear that! Although, as I programmer I wouldn't worry too much about finding a new job. You definitely seem to know what you are doing

I generally think the iPhone market is overhyped. It's been saturated for a long time now. Unless you are lucky, it's hard to make much money with it. I have the exact same app on Android and iPhone, but my sales are way better on the Android platform...

Yeah, I'm not particularly worried. And I do know that there are a lot of other much better paying fields for a software engineer to get into, but I've already decided that I want to stay in game development. It's fun and it's a rush at the same time. These two games on my CV are definitely helping me already! Before I had them I probably got responses from 1/25 jobs I applied for (and jobs offered at 1/100) but now I already have one offer and several interviews. I'm 5/5 on responses. It's an amazing difference. Naturally knowing people in the industry to forward your resume along is a big help also, but it's a combination, I think, as I'm also getting good responses from strangers.

I'm both surprised and not surprised to hear that you're getting better sales on Android. I think it all depends on marketing. A game with little marketing on the Android will do far better than one on iPhone, but a game with good marketing on the iPhone will do much, much, better than its Android counterpart. In the end I think it's all a gamble, really.

I am now working at a better company for a bigger paycheck. Hooray! Today is my third day.

The company is ngmoco:) they made a lot of the big hits on the iPhone. I'm working on the game "Godfinger" that is in beta in Canada right now, soon to be released elsewhere. I'll be the "Live Engineer" on it after release, which means adding new features and keeping it running smoothly, basically.

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